"Ktovet" group

Shai Dotan

I was born in Eilat and currently live in Jerusalem. I have a degree in economics and work at the Israeli Tax Authority. My poems and Hebrew translations of English poems have been published in various publications. My first book, On The Verge (2005), won the Ministry of Education and Culture prize in 2005.


One Minute / Shai Dotan

Just one minute. I want
to scream. I shot him. He advanced
with a suspicious face. Who knew his pockets
were empty, his bag full of clothes.

Perhaps he didn't have a work permit,
or once stole across the border. Perhaps he didn't hear
my hands shouting, the blood
pounding in the chest, knocking on my temples.

Sometimes he wakes in my sleep
hard as lead, empty as the wind,
he says to me: My killer,
I never knew
you were of that kind.

Translated by Rachel Tzvia Back

Note: The poem is in dialogue with the poem "One Minute" by Natan Zach, in Different Poems (Kibbutz Ha'Meuchad Press, 1984).